You know how good it feels just to have a chat with a friend. You don’t have to talk about anything in particular or anything world-changing; just a few shared inconsequential words, what we call “small talk”, can make you feel good about life and a new study has shown why that is the case.
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To understand the functions of language researchers have often looked at primates to see how vocalisation might have evolved. The theory has been that vocal exchanges evolved as group size increased. With larger groups grooming on a one to one basis becomes too time consuming and speech evolved to save time while still expressing familiarity.
In this new study researchers observed lemurs at Duke University’s Lemur Centre and also lemurs living on St Catherine’s Island, Georgia. They found that grooming was selective and only performed between certain individuals. Vocalisation however, was even more selective than grooming. It was found that the lemurs responded only to the calls of those that they groomed most often.
When the researchers recorded the vocalisations of individuals and played them back to the group only the lemurs with a close grooming relationship with the individual making the call would respond. This happened even if the lemur making the vocalisation was not close by.
This suggests that vocalisations indicate strong social bonds, even when the lemur making the vocalisation cannot be seen or smelled.
So even when your friend can’t smell you, small talk doesn’t just fill awkward moments, it performs a vital bonding function. It seems like there really is nothing small about talk at all.
